Mathews Lift 29.5 Full Review

All right, we got the all-new Matthews 2024 Lift. This is their flagship bow. This happens to be the 29.5. They also have a 33-inch axle-to-axle model. Today's video, we're going to be reviewing this one. We are going to be looking at eight different categories with a 1 to 10 scale, so 80 points being perfect score. The categories that we're going to be going over are the actual draw weight of the bow, so we're going to be measuring that. The speed, we're going to shoot through the chronograph at 70 pounds at 28.5 inches. That's what this bow is set at. The draw cycle, the grip, the sound. We have a decibel meter that we're going to be using on our phone. The features, what this bow has compared to last year's Phase 4, which was their 2023 flagship hunting bow. The tunability, and then our overall impression. So then we'll give it a score out of 80 and see how it ranks. We'll be putting the scores up on the screen so you guys can take a look at it. Let's get in the shop. We're going to test this thing out on the scale and see where it comes out at. All right, so this is a 70-pound bow out of the box, so theoretically this thing should be at 70 pounds, and that's how we're going to grade it. If it's not, we're going to deduct whatever weight over or under it is from a perfect 10. So looks like it's coming in at 73. So we'll go ahead and deduct those three points, or those three pounds rather, off of the 10 points and this will get a grade of a 7 out of 10 for draw weight. All right, so for the next test we are going to be shooting it through the chronograph, and with that being said, we need to back this off to get to 70 pounds because all the bows that we test, we test them at 70 pounds. All right, let's check that. That's 72. Backing it out a little bit more, we're going to go probably five-eighths of a turn off. See if that'll take those three pounds off. A hair shy. We'll give it, we'll give it a little bit of love and it should be good. Very finicky when the limbs are this parallel. There we go. All right, half a turn, 70 pounds, took three off. We are going to be using these RIPTKOs. We're at 417. Let's see what the other one is. All right, 417, that's where we're shooting. So we got 70 pounds, 20 and a half, and 417 grain arrows. Let's shoot it through the chronograph and see what we get. All right, let's set up the chronograph. Brian's favorite soundtrack. A little hump there. Felt fast. 293. We'll do one more just to verify. Duplicate. All right, 293. So the way we do this score, basically take off that first number and it gets a 9.3 out of 10. 300 for our scaled system would be a perfect score. Not bad. It does, it does feel fast. The cams are a little aggressive, so you can kind of feel that it is going to be fast. They're not as smooth, but again, I think that's why you're getting some speed. A little less comfort, a little bit more speed. All right, so follow me over to the range. We're going to go over two things, the draw cycle and the grip. We're going to test those out. Want to hit the lights for me? I'm not shooting in the dark. Okay. Since we are here at Willow Creek, they do have a pretty big indoor range. They got 13 lanes. We're going to take advantage of it, and since there's no one in here shooting right now, we have it all to ourselves. So what we're going to do, I'm going to shoot these three arrows, get a feel for the draw cycle, kind of feel how the back wall is, how much of a dump it has, what kind of valley it has. And meanwhile, I'll be kind of feeling out the grip and see how comfortable it is in my hand and how repeatable I think having an accurate and consistent grip would be. I think that's the third or fourth time I've drawn this bow back, but the first time the draw cycle was pretty rough because I'm just not used to it. But it is getting a little more comfortable Really good back wall though. I do like the grip. It's actually pretty narrow, which I prefer. It isn't very flat in the back, which I don't like. I like the flatter ones. Having this little bit of a radius on the back, it feels like my hand sometimes wants to roll, depending on how much wrist I give it. But draw cycle is good to about right there. It's not as comfortable. It doesn't hurt to let down. I do know that we are getting some speed out of it, so you can expect a perfectly smooth draw. I mean, the cams aren't super radical. They are kind of teardrop, so you are going to get that hump at the end there. I don't know. I mean, I think if you shoot probably 10 more arrows, it's going to feel a lot smoother than what it feels like now. So probably for a draw cycle, I give this thing an 8. And then the grip, like I said, it's small, which is convenient, but I don't like the back. I don't like the rounded back. If it was flat, I think it would be a lot better. I think this one is going to get a 7. 7 out of 10. So not bad. Not bad scores. We've seen better. We've seen worse. So for the next test, we're going to be doing the decibel reader. I'm going to take two shots. We've got the phone set up. We're going to keep it about a foot away from the bow, get the max reading, and then give it a score. That one is 84.4. Let's do one more. 84.5. So pretty much 84.5 right there. It seems pretty quiet to me, and there's no other sounds in here to kind of muffle it. We've got nothing on the bow. I'm going to give this thing an 8 out of 10. I'm actually pretty surprised on how quiet it is. Again, we have no components on it to help reduce the noise and the sound. The stuff that it does have on it, like the rubber strip in between the limbs there, is supposed to help reduce the noise and the vibration, along with like the monkey tails and speed knocks, all that kind of stuff. So actually pretty impressed with how quiet this is. So 8 out of 10. Good score. So one thing I noticed about this is that they moved away from the zebra strings, and now they're using what they call match strings. You can see here on the speed knocks. These strings are supposed to be a lot better than the zebra. It's supposed to eliminate peep rotation, serving separation, and overall stretch of the string. So you're supposed to get a little bit better quality strings. They still have their monkey tails, their speed knocks, and something I did notice that seems like it'd be good is the deep track right here on the cam. I've always been in favor of cams that have a little bit deeper track, especially when you're out running around in the bush. It keeps it from possibility of derailing or getting a stick stuck in there and popping that string out. The axle mount, you notice, it is not through the limb itself. So these limbs are much thinner at the end. Instead, they have a mount on top of the limb, which unfortunately, if you're going to be pressing your own bows, you need to get the Matthews fingers. That's a separate finger mount for your last chance archery bow presses. Obviously, you buy them at last chance archery, but you need to have the specialized fingers that fit inside of this screw right here in order to press these bows. So make sure you have the right equipment for it. I hate to see someone buy this bow, try to press it with the wrong press, and end up busting or breaking a component up here. Another thing to mention, it has the SCS system here too for lifting your bow up. You hook your rope on there, lift it up in your tree stand. It's just another little thing that they come out with. On the grip itself, they have the regular engaged grip on here. We kind of went over that earlier. If you notice here, it says shot sense compatible. What this is, it's an app kind of like the steady aim where it will record your shot. It'll keep track of your bow hold, how much torque you're applying to the bow, how you're bubbling in and out, how well you're keeping it within an acceptable tolerance. Basically, it's a shot track app is what it is. I don't think it's available now, but it's supposed to be on the market probably January, February, I'm guessing. It's something to play around with if you like doing that kind of stuff with the bow and really trying to fine tune and tweak your system. I've used the steady aim. You get quite a bit of good information out of it. I would recommend probably trying it, giving it a shot if you do get this bow. This thing is chock full of features, all of them really good. I give this thing a 9.5 out of 10. The only reason why I don't give it a full 10 out of 10 is because some of the stuff, if you want to use, is just Matthew specific and you got to dish out a lot of money. I'm more of the user friendly type. I'm not trying to spend $3,000 just for a bow. With that being said, a 9.5 out of 10 is a really good score for the features. I don't think we've had a bow that high. Kudos to Matthew on this one. It's a pretty good bow. The next thing we're going to go over is the tunability of these bows. Like most other bows, the mods is just a simple taking out a screw, throwing the mod on there, and putting the screw back in. In order to shim it and move your top hats around, you do have to press this. You have to pull the entire axle out, try not to lose any of the parts or drop anything, and put it back in the new configuration. It's 2023. I think everybody should have shims that they can pop in and out without having to press a bow. With that being said, it's going to get a 7 out of 10 as far as tunability goes. The last thing I want to go over for our scoring system is the overall impression of this bow. I really like the way it shoots, the speed, the functionality of everything. It has a lot to offer as far as technology. A lot of the things are, I want to say, industry leading. They do innovate a lot. There's a lot of cool stuff on this bow. I like the fact that it is an aluminum riser bow that is this light. That's actually a really cool thing. For the overall impression score, this thing's going to get a 9 out of 10 in my book, which comes out to a 64.8 out of 80 if you're following along, which is not a bad score at all. It's a really good score. It's a hunting bow. It's a Matthews Lift 2024. This is the 29.5, and that's our review.